Grandfather’s Pearls

When I was a child, I spent every summer at my grandparents’ house in the countryside in Tatarstan, Russia. On one of my earlier visits, my grandfather taught me to read by writing and illustrating short stories. He promised that for every page I read, I would earn a pearl, and that when I had earned enough pearls, he would make me a necklace. Ever the skeptic, I asked where he was planning on getting the pearls. He said he would dive for them himself. I illustrated a book about these stories after losing my grandfather in October 2023. Shown: selected illustrations. All illustrations are done with a combination of ink linework and digital color.